[Congressional Record Volume 168, Number 147 (Tuesday, September 13, 2022)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4547-S4549]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                             Climate Change

  Mr. KING. Mr. President, this is going to be an unusual set of 
comments for me because I am going to start out with some personal 
history, which I hope will make sense in terms of what I want to 
address.
  I started working in the alternative energy industry in 1983. When I 
say industry, it was, actually, a very small company developing small 
hydro projects in Maine and New England. We then worked on the 
development of biomass projects. We, later on, worked on wind power and 
then also on the development of large-scale conservation. So my 
professional life has largely been occupied with energy and 
particularly with renewable energy.
  At the same time, I had a deep history in Maine in environmental 
matters. I represented the environmental community in Maine before the 
Maine Legislature, in the seventies, if you can believe that anybody 
around here was still doing things in the seventies. I also, as 
Governor, was very active in conservation matters and am proud to say 
that, during my 8 years as the Governor of Maine, we put aside and set 
into conservation and protection status more land than in the prior 
175-year history of Maine combined. This has been a passion of mine, 
the protection of the environment, for my entire life--so the history 
of renewable energy development and also environmental advocacy.

[[Page S4548]]

  I learned some lessons when I was working in the field of developing 
alternative or renewable energy. The most important lesson is that 
there is no free lunch when it comes to energy. There are always costs 
and benefits. There are always impacts that some people think are 
terrific and that other people think are not so good. There are always 
trade-offs.
  In fact, I will never forget my going to hearings on hydro projects 
and having people come and object and saying: We like hydro but not on 
our river, not on this site, and, by the way, we don't really think you 
should be ruining the rivers. Why don't you go and do wind power?
  Lo and behold, 20 years later, I worked in the area of wind 
development, of wind power, and people came to our hearings and said: 
We don't really need to spoil the view in our mountains. Do more hydro.
  I am not making that up. I actually lived that sort of conflict.
  The second lesson I learned is that you may have global goals with 
renewable energy but have local impacts, and you often have a 
controversy about a particular project.
  The third thing I learned is that change is hard. Everybody is for 
progress. Nobody is for change. Change is difficult, whether it is for 
a local community, a State, or a nation.
  The fourth thing: Permitting is hard. Getting permits for renewable 
energy projects was lengthy, time-consuming, and expensive. This was 
serious learning that I had during this period in that, if you want to 
develop even the most beneficial project, you are going to have to go 
through an often arduous permitting process, and somebody isn't going 
to like it. There always will be trade-offs.
  These were sporadic, small projects. Indeed, in New England today--
and I just checked this morning--about 10 percent of our electricity 
comes from renewables. This is after almost 40 years of the development 
of these projects--about 10 percent. We are now talking about a 
transition in energy to a fully renewable future. Well, if you do the 
math, that means 10 times the amount of renewable energy development 
which we have done in the last 40 years, in the next 10 to 15 years. 
People have to understand that this is a major, major change that is 
going to require trade-offs. It is going to require us to make 
decisions and to understand--again, to go back to my basic premise--
that there is no free lunch.
  We are now undertaking the largest and most far-reaching energy 
transition in human history. The transition to fossil fuels took about 
150 years. Going back to around 1800, you can see the graphic goes up, 
but we really got into the real heart of the fossil fuel economy in the 
mid-20th century--150 years. We are talking about transitioning away 
from fossil fuels to renewables over 15 years--not 150 but 15.
  We have to grasp that this is an enormous undertaking and that it is 
going to involve change. We are literally in a race with climate 
change. That is why it is going to have to happen in the next 10, 15, 
20 years, because the consequences of not doing it are catastrophic, 
and we are already seeing that.
  I think that we have reached a point at which most Americans realize 
that climate change is real. The fishermen in Maine know it. The 
loggers know it. The farmers know it. The people who work with the land 
and the sea and the atmosphere understand what is happening. They see 
it. The animals know it. They know what is happening, and that is why 
we have to make this transition. That is why it is so important that we 
make this transition, and it has got to be fast. We don't have time to 
do it over 150 years or even over 50 years. It is a huge change. It is 
going to involve dislocation, and it is going to involve trade-offs. 
That is really the question that I want to address today.
  There is broad agreement, I believe, that we need change, that we 
need to develop responses to the global climate change crisis. There is 
certainly agreement in the environmental community as far as that 
question is concerned. There is nobody in the environmental community 
whom I know who doubts climate change or doubts the necessity of taking 
dramatic action to meet it. Climate change is as real as it gets, and 
we have to address it.
  How do we address it? With nonfossil fuel electrification--fast. If 
we can do that, we can address the CO2. Really, what we are 
talking about is the emission of CO2. Is it a problem? Well, 
the average over the past million years of CO2 in the 
atmosphere is about 280 parts per million. It varies up and down.
  People say: Oh, this is a natural cycle.
  Yes, it varies up and down between 150 and 300 parts per million. It 
is now at about 420 parts per million. It has gone up 20 in the last 2 
or 3 years. The last time we were over 400 parts per million of 
CO2 in the atmosphere the oceans were 60 feet higher. We are 
in unchartered territory in human history right now. We have to deal 
with it, and we have to deal with it in a hurry.
  Where is all of that CO2 coming from? Well, here is a 
rough breakdown of the CO2 budget, if you will: About 30 
percent comes from the generation of electricity--30, 35 percent. 
Another 30, 35 percent comes from transportation, the combustion of 
fossil fuels in vehicles. The last 30, 35 percent comes from space heat 
and industrial use. So that is the budget that we have to deal with. 
How do we tackle that? With electrification, with the electricity 
coming from renewable sources.

  Now, if you have an electric vehicle and you are feeling really good 
about saving the environment, you are not saving the environment if the 
power for that electric vehicle comes from fossil fuels. You are saving 
the environment if the power for that electric vehicle comes from 
renewables. So that is what we are talking about, but there are 
problems with renewables.
  Remember, I said I had worked in the wind power business. The wind 
doesn't blow all the time. The Sun doesn't shine all the time. The term 
is ``intermittency.'' That is the issue. That is the issue with 
renewables--intermittency--the fact that there has to be something to 
supply power when the Sun doesn't shine and the wind doesn't blow.
  The answer to that is storage. The real Green New Deal is energy 
storage. If we can solve that problem in a cost-effective way, then we 
really can have a realistic, all-renewable future, because what you 
have with energy storage, plus renewables, is essentially baseload 
power without CO2. That is really the direction that we are 
moving in.
  However--and this is what I want to really stress--you can't be in 
favor of electrification; you can't be in favor of renewable power; you 
can't be in favor of electric vehicles if you are not in favor of 
mining the lithium that you need for the batteries or in covering a lot 
of farmers' fields with solar panels. You can't have those things 
without paying a price. It would be nice if you could.
  I would love it if I could wave a wand and say: We are going to get 
rid of fossil fuels, and we are going to have an all-renewable future. 
Yes, I want that, but we have to recognize that, in order to get there, 
there are some things we have to do that heretofore we really haven't 
been very likely to like.
  One of the other issues with renewable power is that a lot of the 
renewable power is in places where there aren't people. So we have to 
get that renewable power to the places where there are people.
  Do you know what that means? Transmission, new transmission lines, 
new rights of way. People aren't going to be too crazy about that, but 
you can't have a renewable energy future without having transmission, 
and you can't have a renewable energy future without having batteries 
or some storage technology that, chances are, is going to require Earth 
minerals that you are going to have to mine.
  Geography is a problem. Technology is a problem. This will require 
trade-offs. We have to keep in mind that we are talking about a global 
goal--we are talking about literally saving the Earth--but we have to 
understand that there are going to be costs to do so.
  Let's talk about permitting.
  One of my favorite stories is when God went to Moses and said: Moses, 
I have good news and bad news.
  Moses said: God, give me the good news.
  God says: I am going to empower you to part the waters of the Red 
Sea, allow my people to go free, and then

[[Page S4549]]

have the waters come back and inundate Pharaoh's army.
  Moses says: That is wonderful, God. What is the bad news?
  God says: You have to prepare the environmental impact statement.
  We have got to understand that permitting is part of the process of 
going to a renewable future.
  Now, when I was the Governor of Maine, I had a very clear policy: no 
diminution--no cutting, no cutting corners--of environmental standards, 
but I wanted the most timely and predictable environmental permitting 
process in the country, and I don't think that those two things are in 
any way mutually exclusive.
  When I talk here and work with my colleagues here about permitting 
reform, I am talking--we are talking--about the process, not the 
standards. We are not talking about lowering the standards, saying that 
you can emit more or you don't have to meet clean water standards.
  I sit at Edmund Muskie's desk in my office. Lightning would strike me 
if I were lowering the water quality or air quality standards, but we 
have got to talk about a process that is timely and predictable.
  The estimates are that, to permit a mine in this country, it takes 
about 10 years--about 10 years. We don't have 10 years to spend on a 
permitting process if we are going to solve this problem in time to 
save the country and the planet. We have got to figure out how to do 
this in a more timely way. How are we going to do it? I don't know the 
details of the various discussions that are going on here, but I have 
some thoughts that I have suggested to Senator Manchin and others.
  One is one-stop shopping. You shouldn't have to go to five different 
Agencies. Go to one Agency that is in charge of the permitting process, 
and let them lead it. Don't make the applicant go to five, six, seven 
different Agencies.
  Secondly are deadlines--real deadlines, deadlines that mean 
something--so that the Agency, if it says 180 days, has got to have a 
decision in 180 days. Eisenhower retook Europe in 11 months. There is 
no reason that we can't get decisions out of some of these Agencies in 
less than a year. So deadlines and reasonable timeframes, I think, are 
part of this process, and an accelerated appeals process, where the 
appeal of an environmental decision on a renewable energy project, that 
is related to renewable energy, or that is related to our renewable 
energy future can go to the courts and get a fair hearing but on a 
timely basis and not go through a long process that takes, again, 
years.
  Another suggestion I have--and this goes back to my experience of 
working on renewable energy projects--is there should be some credit 
given for the nature of the project that you are doing. In other words, 
if you are doing a project that is going to contribute to the solution 
of the problem of global climate change, you shouldn't be treated as a 
strip mall. Some weight should be given to the import and the value--
the environmental value--of the project, vis-a-vis the incidental 
environmental costs--and I could be criticized for using the word 
``incidental,'' but the smaller environmental costs that may be 
involved in getting there. I think that has got to be how we approach 
this whole permitting question.
  So why am I here today? I am here today to talk to my friends in the 
environmental community--and I do mean friends, people whom I have 
worked with all my life--to have them change the way they think about 
the environmental process and what they have conventionally and 
historically thought about this kind of action.
  Historically, if you go back to the beginning of the environmental 
movement in the sixties and seventies--and Lord, help me, I was there--
the environmental movement was about stopping things. The environmental 
movement in Maine began with a proposed oil refinery on our coast. 
People wanted to stop it because they didn't think it was the 
appropriate place. But if you think about that, a lot of the 
environmental movement has been about stopping things, stopping 
projects, stopping highways, stopping whatever.
  What we have to do now is think about facilitating getting things 
done in order to get to the renewable future that we want. I think that 
is a very, very important way to look at this process. You can't be for 
EVs if you are against mining lithium.
  Let me give you just a couple of numbers on what I am talking about. 
Copper--remember, I talked about transmission. Copper, copper wires to 
transmit electricity, the estimate is--I want to be sure this is right. 
The estimate is we are going to need as much copper annually by 2050 as 
has been mined in the entire prior history of the world. In 1 year, we 
are going to need that much. The estimate is that in order to achieve 
our climate goals, we are going to have to triple--triple--the grid: 
the wires, the rights of way, the towers. The grid infrastructure has 
to be tripled in order to absorb the new and transmitted--distribute 
the new energy that is going to be needed. If you have electric 
vehicles, you are going to need more wires to get the power--that is 
going to be a huge increase; between doubling and tripling is the 
estimate--of the strength of the grid.
  The International Energy Agency--not me and not some commercial 
group, but the International Energy Agency says that by 2040--that is 
not that long from now, barely over 15 years--we are going to need 42 
times the amount of lithium that we have, 25 times more graphite, 21 
times more cobalt, 19 times more nickel, and 7 times more rare-earth 
elements. Now, we have two choices: We can buy those things from other 
countries, particularly countries that may be potential adversaries. Do 
we really want to be dependent on China for this kind of essential 
material to our environmental future? I don't think so. But if we are 
going to say we don't want to import it, we have got to get it out of 
the ground here, and we can't spend 10 years deciding it. I am not 
saying lower the standards, but I am saying the process itself should 
not be used as a weapon to undermine projects that are necessary to 
achieve our ultimate climate goal.
  This is a change. This is a change of thinking that is required by 
the reality that we face. I am here because I want to face that 
reality. I want to do something about climate change. I want to take 
the actions necessary, not token actions but the real deal. But it is 
going to involve these enormous commitments of time, effort, and money 
and also our understanding--particularly in the environmental 
community--that there is no free lunch.
  On December 2, 1862, Abraham Lincoln came to this Congress to talk 
about the progress of the Civil War. His problem was that the Congress 
was being the Congress. They were doing politics, and he didn't feel 
they were really taking it seriously or understood the massive change 
that was sweeping over the country. At the end of that speech, the 
afternoon of December 2, 1862, Abraham Lincoln gave what I think is 
still the best analysis of how you deal with change that I have ever 
encountered, and I think it applies exactly in this situation. Lincoln 
said:

       The dogmas of the quiet past, are inadequate to the stormy 
     present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, 
     [therefore] we must rise--with the occasion. As our case is 
     new, so we must think anew, and act anew.

  And then here is the key line:

       We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our 
     country.

  ``We must disenthrall ourselves and then we shall save our country.''
  ``Disenthrall'' means thinking new and different ways. Let go of the 
way you thought about these kinds of issues in the past. Disenthrall 
ourselves, and then we shall save our planet.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Padilla). The Republican whip.
  Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be able to 
complete my remarks before the start of the vote.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.